KUALA LUMPUR: The Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) has yet to ascertain the cause of the Covid-19 outbreak at the vaccination centre (PPV) at the Ideal Convention Centre (IDCC) in Shah Alam.
The IDCC Shah Alam PPV is closed for sanitisation works today after 204 workers including volunteers at the centre contracted Covid-19.
Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the CITF is unsure over the cause of the outbreak.
"We are not sure if they were exposed to the virus either at the complex or outside as the number of cases in Selangor is very high," said Khairy, who is also the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister.
The CITF has instructed all 453 workers including volunteers at the IDCC Shah Alam PPV to undergo mass testing after two volunteers there tested positive for the virus.
He added that as of today, 204 workers and volunteers have tested positive for Covid-19 following mass testing conducted on July 10.
The CITF has instructed the IDCC Shah Alam to close for a day to enable the authorities to carry out sanitisation works.
A new team of workers would be deployed at the centre when it resumes operations tomorrow (July 14).
Khairy also said none of the workers and volunteers who contracted the virus have serious symptoms.
"Test results on the affected workers and volunteers showed that their virus load is low. This is possibly because some of the workers who had contracted the virus have already been vaccinated," he said.
Earlier, Khairy said 88 per cent of the workforce or 400 people have been vaccinated.
On volunteers who have yet to be vaccinated, Khairy did not rule out the possibility that they were a new batch of volunteers under the Malaysia Vaccine Support Volunteers' (MyVAC) initiative.
"They may be among a new rotation of volunteers under MyVAC. Sometimes there is a new rotation who have yet to be vaccinated.
"They would usually be vaccinated during their first week of volunteer duty," he said.
Asked if workers including volunteers at the PPVs nationwide would be asked to undergo routine testing to avoid a recurrence of the incident, Khairy said the CITF will make its decision based on a number of information including data from the contact tracing system available at the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) level.
"If the data shows there are PPVs with a high risk of becoming a (Covid-19 cluster), I will instruct mass testing to be conducted at the centre," he said.